Editing R (programming language) (section)

== History ==
{{Gallery
|title=Co-originators of the R language
|width=160 | height=170 |noborder=yes
|align=center
|footer=
|File:Ross Ihaka (5189180796).jpg
 |Ross Ihaka
 |alt1=
|File:Robert Gentleman on R Consortium.jpg
 |Robert Gentleman
 |alt2=
}}

''R'' was started by professors [[Ross Ihaka]] and [[Robert Gentleman (statistician)|Robert Gentleman]] as a programming language to teach introductory statistics at the [[University of Auckland]].<ref name="otago_pg12">{{Cite web
  |last=Ihaka
  |first=Ross
  |title=The R Project: A Brief History and Thoughts About the Future
  |url=https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~ihaka/downloads/Otago.pdf
  |page=12
  |url-status=live
  |quote=We set a goal of developing enough of a language to teach introductory statistics courses at Auckland.
  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221228043824/https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~ihaka/downloads/Otago.pdf 
  |archive-date=2022-12-28
  |access-date=2022-12-27}}</ref> The language was inspired by the [[S (programming language)|S programming language]], with most S programs able to run unaltered in ''R''.<ref name="R FAQ"/> The language was also inspired by [[Scheme (programming language)|Scheme's]] [[lexical scoping]], allowing for [[local variable]]s.<ref name="Morandat"/>

The name of the language, ''R'', comes from being both an S language successor as well as the shared first letter of the authors, Ross and Robert.<ref>{{Cite web
  |last1=Hornik
  |first1=Kurt
  |last2=The R Core Team
  |date=2022-04-12
  |title=R FAQ
  |url=https://cran.r-project.org/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html#Why-is-R-named-R_003f
  |url-status=live
  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221228045640/https://cran.r-project.org/doc/FAQ/R-FAQ.html
  |archive-date=2022-12-28
  |access-date=2022-12-28
  |website=[[R package#Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN)|The Comprehensive R Archive Network]]
  |at=2.13 What is the R Foundation?}}</ref> In August 1993, Ihaka and Gentleman posted a [[Binary file|binary]] of ''R'' on StatLib — a data archive [[website]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Index of /datasets |url=https://lib.stat.cmu.edu/datasets/ |access-date=2024-09-05 |website=lib.stat.cmu.edu}}</ref> At the same time, they announced the posting on the ''s-news'' [[mailing list]].<ref name="Interface98">{{Cite web
  |last=Ihaka
  |first=Ross
  |title=R: Past and Future History
  |url=https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~ihaka/downloads/Interface98.pdf
  |url-status=live
  |page=4
  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221228071311/https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~ihaka/downloads/Interface98.pdf 
  |archive-date=2022-12-28
  |access-date=2022-12-28}}</ref> On 5 December 1997, ''R'' became a [[GNU project]] when version 0.60 was released.<ref>{{Cite web
  |last=Ihaka
  |first=Ross
  |date=1997-12-05
  |title=New R Version for Unix
  |url=https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-announce/1997/000014.html
  |url-status=live
  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230212133422/https://stat.ethz.ch/pipermail/r-announce/1997/000014.html
  |archive-date=2023-02-12
  |access-date=2023-02-12
  |website=stat.ethz.ch}}</ref> On 29 February 2000, the 1.0 version was released.<ref name="otago_pg18">{{Cite web
  |last=Ihaka
  |first=Ross
  |title=The R Project: A Brief History and Thoughts About the Future
  |url=https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~ihaka/downloads/Otago.pdf
  |page=18
  |url-status=live
  |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221228043824/https://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~ihaka/downloads/Otago.pdf 
  |archive-date=2022-12-28
  |access-date=2022-12-27}}</ref>